


Playwrights and Poesy

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: London, M/M, Oscar Wilde - Freeform, Pigeons, Soho, william shakespeare - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 08:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12361683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley are in Leicester Square, they discuss their liaisons with Wilde and Shakespeare and end up having a conversation in quotations from their playwrights





	Playwrights and Poesy

Innumerable pigeons colonized the grass. Buskers on the corners filled the air with what Aziraphale would describe as be-bop. People cheered and chattered, children ran in figure eights through the fountain. Amid the din the sound of the fountain itself was soothingly repetitive, a shh-shh-shh sssss as geysers rose into the air and fell in water drops. A man painted bronze towing a crate walked past, followed by a government representative and a teenager on a skateboard.

The statue of Shakespeare was framed on either side by gnarled maples, their leaves gradually turning brown.

Crowley squinted at the statue, or at least Aziraphale thought he was squinting, his eyebrows retreating behind the frames of his sunglasses.

‘I miss him sometimes, you know.’

‘Did they get it right, do you suppose?’ Aziraphale had only met Shakespeare once, and his memory of that particular night was rather fuzzy.

'The beard’s right.’

'And the hairline?’

'Leave him alone.’

The wind picked up just then, blowing a fine mist across the square.

'Sometimes I wonder-’ Crowley crossed his legs and rested his chin on his hand in unconscious imitation of the statue, 'if I’d been less of an incorrigible show-off and terrible actor-’

The pattern of the geysers changed, switching the every rising together other rather than running in a ring. Shh-sssss, shh-sssss.

'You should have seen me in The Importance of Being Earnest.’

'You could have woken me.’

'Do you think I didn’t try?’

Crowley turned to face Aziraphale as an Italian businesswoman sat down beside them, talking on the phone.

'I’m sorry. About what happened. That I wasn’t there for you.’

'Well, you were there, just-’

'Unresponsive.’

'Quite.’

Aziraphale looked up at the statue. Was he imagining things, or had it changed position slightly? He looked less like a paean of English literature now and more like someone that stood in the corner at parties, wondering when he could leave.

Aziraphale blinked and the young man on the corner behind them found himself playing an electric violin rather than a guitar.

'Do you ever think you’ll start selling Shakespeare?’

'You’re awful about Shakespeare, my dear.’

Crowley frowned and licked his lips agitatedly 'While I admit I can be rather-’

'I don’t know why you claim to recall the original performance cuts when you couldn’t even remember your own lines at the time.’

'Stage fright is a real thing, angel.’

A dog with long hair ran through the fountain and then shook its fur, spraying water in all directions.

Aziraphale made a sound of dismay as it soaked into his coat.

Crowley swept his wet hair out of face with a hand. 'What’s past is prologue, what to come in yours and my discharge.’

'You stop that.’

'They fell together all, as by consent; they dropped as by a thunderstroke…’

'If you are not wicked, you certainly have been deceiving us all in a very inexcusable manner.’

Crowley broke into a broad grin. 'Nor needst thou much importune me to that.’

Crowley took the angel’s hand where it was resting on the bench beside him. His nails were painted today. Iridescent like the inside of a conch shell. He thought of the way Aziraphale would hum to distract himself while ringing up purchases at the bookshop.

'You know me well and herein spent but time…’ his fingers fit neatly in the space between Aziraphale’s.

'Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation?’

'O, if you only knew.’

They sat without speaking for several moments, trying to place the pattern of eighth notes coming from the formerly-guitar-playing violinist at the corner of the square furthest from the National Gallery.  
E-F-G-E, B-G-B-E.

'Do you want to get a takeaway?’

'Yeah.’


End file.
